Requisitions and pay Revamp
Corporate budgets and player corruption

The first thing would be, this would take the requisitions terminal and move it from something commonly used, into something used for purely rare items and importing goods not typically found in Withmore. This would allow GM's to focus less on vetting requisitions terminal requests and more on running plots.

But wait, what would the humble package man in requisitions room do at that point?

Two words, budget management.

In explanation, there's a concept from real life called discretionary business funds. I would implement a system like this with each department having an overhead budget that is then split between everyone underneath that department, with requisitions being able to maneuver and influence it largely department to department or slightly individual to individual, and in general give the obvious opportunity for corruption and foul play inherent in a system like this.

The idea is simple, your corporation trusts you to take it's money, with discretion, and use it for your job. You would gradiate the amount from department to department based on number of players, performance, seniority of staff, and the influence of requisitions.

The exact numbers aren't important here, and would be a lever for the GM's to pick at and play with. The importance here is that this addresses 3 main concerns.

1. Corporate players struggling for money, which is unthemely.

2. Corporate Requisitions agents complaining they have nothing to do on a regular basis.

3. Creates more room and time for GM's to oversee plot, rather than researching if a requisitions or reimbursement order is justified.

Under this system your pay would become a personal reward for working for the company and your 'Funny money' essentially. And your requisitions budget/discretionary funds would be your money to spend on things related to work in some way.

From a personal experience, I could make more off basic automated systems that I did from both starting and even normal employee salaries. Let that sink in... a Mixer living in Hab-X doing nothing else but automated systems, likely out earns most if not all Juniors and probably a substantial amount of regular employees. That's an unemployed, no responsibility, vagrant doing "odd jobs" who is regularly clearing more than a Corpie. Both of them can RP for more income and side hustle so that should not be part of the argument. The point is that it's hard to accept that you take a substantial pay cut from living the Hab life to what's considered a "desireable job"

Corpshares help three people a quarter and loans are not a way to have FU money, it's a way to shift your earnings for a time. You still have the same amount of money, you just front load when you get it. Rich for a short period then broke.

As for starting businesses and other initiatives, all of those take GM support and time... and more importantly Game Time. I am sure whichever player started the Mix League probably took a significant amount of time to get that set up. It's really cool when it happens, but the time frame and effort mean that only a few players will ever succeed in doing something like that. Yes! More of this, but it's not realistic to expect most players to do so.

I know as a player I often have to temper my expectations on what I want to do and what I can realistically do. Resources are a big key. Sure, I want to hire joe Mixer to do something against my rival corp. But that's a few thousand here... a few thousand there... if you're a Junior, that's not happening often. If you don't have a donation pad, that's not happening very often. Not because you don't want too... just because it's simply pulling out of a very finite bucket. Corpies engaging mixers to do stuff happens, but for many of them, it's hard to finance because FU money can be hard to get.

Now... I understand that just raising salaries has game balance implications. Which is what I would expect the heart of this issue is. I like this idea as it would require some checks to what you are spending on.

Are you HR? Cool. Use your discressionary funds to organize a CPI event, or cater for a gathering. Maybe pay a mixer to get some intel on an up an coming mixer you want to recruit. The point is that you have a bigger pool of PLOT money to spend.

Are you SEC? I am sure you paying informants. Potentially hiring solos to do dirty work for you. Paying for expensive one time equipment.

In all cases, if you don't use your PLOT money for the week, it goes away and it rewards active players without just collecting a check week to week.

The thing that I like is that this idea seems to both give some additional life to a job that's a little slow as well as helping an issue without breaking game balance. Would it be fair to just triple corporate salaries? No. Of course not. But... making players justify how to use their slush funds I think would be a fantastic way of getting more PLOT money into the game as well as still letting them save for the latest Progia-22 soon in stores!

I do think that corporate salaries are a little low. It's not as bad as people make it out to be, but a Mixer with a bartender job makes about as much from crate running as a junior. I think it is more pronounced with some service jobs. I do think the regularly repeated IC line of "Mixers make more than juniors" feels a little anti thematic, and if we maybe doubled corporate salaries with a few more high expense items as sinks that wouldn't be the worst thing. That's probably best to be the subject of its own idea, though.

The bigger issue I see in this thread is the lack of meat to the Requistions job, especially as a junior. Junior HR, junior Sec, junior PR, they all have things to do on a weekly basis related to their job that require actual RP with other players and problems to solve related to the company and the game world that don't involve GM intervention. Requisitions doesn't have that, as far as I can see.

There are many solutions that could be coded, but code resources are hard to come by. I would suggest the following non-code policy changes:

1. No reimbursements for items will be approved on any budget code that isn't Requisitions if there is an active Requisitions officer in the company.

2. If there is an active Requisitions officer, they should make the Requisitions requests, not the target character of the Requisition.

3. Requisitions characters will be encouraged to acquire items requested of them in whatever manner is least expensive for the company.

Those three changes take no code work but mean that a Requisitions character is now engaged with every division when they need something, not just delivering crates. It also encourages underground trade with fixers and gives Requisitions characters a way to "excel" to their bosses by coming in under budget. Finally, it gives GMs an easy tool to create more RP for the division, since they can just break or "use up" some essential gear for another unit periodically if enough requests aren't flowing. Finally, by looping Reqs officers in it spreads info more through the company with possibilities for infosec issues and the RP from that.

I've always advocated in favor of corpies making more flash and I thought things were better now. I am disappointed to hear that the corpshares system only benefits 3 people, seems like an oversight error. Even mix sporting bets systems seem less restrictive.

Anyways, I do hope the staff listens to some of these pleas so corporate players don't keep feeling disenfranchised.

Personally, I'd much rather see less Corpies embezzling from automated income, not because it isn't themely, but because it's just... Boring. Automated income is boring. More Corpies should be going out of their comfort zone and actually hustling for their money, and it is a perfectly viable thing to do. A lot of them are, sadly, too scared to do it.

Not to say that it doesn't happen, it certainly does, and a lot of them are good at keeping it under wraps, or hush hush. But, yeah, I'd rather reward actual hustle for embezzling than making it easier to be sleazy via the requisitions system. That's already perfectly possible if you know what you're doing.

Just my 2chys worth, but I'd much rather see automation devalued overall. Hustle, it's far more rewarding both cash wise, and from the RP you get.

The only thing I was going to say is that hustle is hustle. That should not be considered in automated or passive income. Anyone can hustle and scam for chy and player effort is a large part of how much you might or might not make. Saying that Corpies can make more if they hustle doesn't address the inequity and theme issue that Corpies in general make significantly less than anyone else.

However, in theme, Corpies should have money to burn.

Money drives plots. Nearly by nature Corpies have to spend more than Mixers to do the same things. I want to get a favor, not only am I paying for the favor, but I'm dropping a stack here and there to set up arrangements to talk, or a little extra to keep quiet. I overpay for things because I'm expected too. Do I haggle with a fixer to get something? Nope. Sure I know I could, but that's not theme.

So as a Corpie, you often spend more. You are expected to spend to drive plots. You really SHOULD make more, but if that can't be done, then a system to help you access chy to drive plots should be in place. It's expected, it's theme, and it drives interactions.

Regardless of your level, corpies should ideally be burning money for the sake of plot and RP, even if it hurts to look at the numbers in bank accounts from an ooc perspective.

I'm not convinced that corporate character are paid too little, though I do think that a membership is basically required to be a corporate character. I think there might be some benefits to paying corporate characters more, but I don't know that I'd want to do it as a straight salary increase. I'd want to do it in some kind of RP-encouraging fashion.

I do think that the Requisitions role is not well situated and could use some more to do.

It's the only way I feel stress-free enough saving money toward goals, plots, and gear to help me on the way.

Seems like testimony paints a pretty consistent experience for topside, and I think that's okay if it's consistent. Encouraging memberships is required if the game needs a fair sum of money to cover operating costs so I am okay with it.

There are many styles of corporate play. The job you choose effectively gives you the range of plots you can pick from.

In my opinion, a corporate character's job shouldn't limit the range of plots open to them. There's nothing stopping a Junior Requisitions Agent from buying data, keeping tabs on mixers, and exploiting them. And a Security Agent could organize and host a music event in the park. A pilot could make useful NPC contacts. There may be some personal conflicts to resolve and permissions to get, but it's not insurmountable.

If corporate characters feel restricted and pigeon-holed into their roles, it's more likely that is the result of their PC managers enforcing those restrictions. Not NPCs.

A corpie's job determines the minimum expectations of them, but the individual can go above and beyond in any direction, so long as it benefits the company.

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My quick opinion on pay: I don't think base corpie pay should be increased. It's true that juniors don't get much pay, and a membership is virtually required if you want to build a savings. However, as others have said, corpies accumulate money because their savings aren't being drained.

Mixers can make more money per week, but if you're a corpie and you're not dying, then you're not buying new cyberware, new clothes, new gear, and the various expenses that go into being a battle-ready mixer. Over months, the chyen builds up.

The systems for making extra money as a corpie, through hustle, seem to be there. That's what should be encouraged. Not passive stacking of larger paychecks.

Yes, survival as a corpie is easier, but they are also expected to rain money downward. At the least they should be making more than someone who is unemployed, living topside with nearly the same minimal risk. If you are allowed to make X in the hab on low risk automated systems, then you should really be fine with X+Y for people who actually have what are considered to be desirable jobs.

I know someone suggested to me to find a tutor on how to not spend so much, it's not needing to learn how to spend less, it's theme to not quibble about a stack here or there. If you want Corpies to play to theme, you really need them to be able to act like it. Hard to have sympathy for downtrodden mixers when you can barely make rent. I watch Mixers who are "Posh and Bespoke" all the time walk by Juniors and normal corpies using their Prog-7s. It's just not... themely.

My experience with requisitions/reimbursements boils down to 'if your character's job doesn't codedly require this item, you will not get it, and you will probably be ICly scolded for asking.'

Reqs/Reimbursements require GM time, so I'm not sure it's a good solution, but I think finding creative ways to ask for stuff and even tangentially linking it to your job should be more encouraged. For example, if your character a journalist? Well, you have to have lots of clothes for interviewing people, so it shouldn't be automatically dismissed if you requisition an extra wardrobe. An HR representative? Maybe you want to 'check into a job candidates grid presence', so you requisition a top of the line liteterm. Heck, just promoted to senior? Maybe the company sees fit to give you a company car (yes, I am aware there's an IC job that somewhat touches on this, but I believe that role should be focused elsewhere...)

Hard Chy salary increases are good though, because they require less GM attention. It's all about finding a balance.